Letters to the Editor: Ending homelessness will take decades, not years
I am very distressed by the recent announcement by Mayor Tory that an initiative has been launched to stop the homelessness problem in Toronto.
The solution he is proposing, as well as the solutions being proposed by the other government-sponsored initiatives, can only be found in government spending and in the private sector.
It will take decades.
The only way it can be solved, is by bringing it back to the public sector, so that the taxpayers of this city can be made whole.
City council is sitting on a $1.6 billion reserve fund.
This money can be spent on providing housing for the homeless.
Instead, Tory and his government have spent $80 million on the campaign to stop the homelessness problem. This amount is a drop in the bucket compared to what it will come to in decades, if we have to wait that long.
The City of Toronto should not be taking this approach to solving the homeless problem.
The Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s budget for 2013-2014 was $18.15 million.
The City of Toronto’s 2013-2014 budget was $3.4 billion. We have more than double.
There should be no money going into such things, such as a big corporate campaign to stop homelessness.
It will take years to save the homeless. It will take decades.
It doesn’t make sense.
We are already paying for homeless veterans to be put in group homes.
We are already paying for homeless drug addicts.
We are already paying for homeless sex offenders to be shuffled from shelter to the emergency room.
The problem has been exacerbated by the government’s cuts and is made more urgent by the mayor’s announcement.
The decision to launch the campaign should not fall to the mayor’s office.
It should be the right of the citizens of Toronto to decide the direction of this city.
How
